Alice Springs

Alice Springs (also known locally as "the Alice")
is one of Australia's most remote and isolated
tourism destinations, an oasis in Central Australia's vast desert
located in the almost exact centre of the Australian continent.
Its nearest neighbouring sizeable population centres are Darwin
at 1600 km away and Adelaide at a similar distance. Although
the small town is located in an extremely remote place in the
outback, it is a popular place to visit being an ideal base
to explore some of Australia's greatest natural wonders; Ayers
Rock or Uluru, the Olgas or Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon and the
MacDonnell Ranges.
Aborigines make up about 18% of the town's population of 28000.

For many thousands of years the Alice Springs area
and most of Central Australia was the territory of the Arrernte
tribe. They used to call this area Mparntwe, and believed this
area had been created by ancestral figures Ayepe-arenye, Ntyarlke
and Utnerrengatye.

First European exploration in this area was in
1862 when John McDouall Stuart's expedition passed through on
his way to the north coast, mainly for the purpose of mapping
the country for future white settlement. His name lives on in
the Stuart Highway that connects Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin.

The next major step in Alice Springs' history,
and the main reason for the town's establishment at the time,
was the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line from Adelaide
to Darwin. It was completed in 1872 and a telegraph repeater station
was built at a permanent waterhole named Alice Springs.
Sir Charles Todd was the Postmaster General of South Australia
at the time and the river that ran from the waterhole was named
after his wife, up till then the official name of the town had
been Sturt. Having a different name for the river and the town
was found to be confusing and in 1933 the town name was offically
changed from Stuart to Alice Springs. Another change had come
to the town in 1929; the railway from Adelaide was completed and
mechanical trains took over from the Afghan camel trains.

Europeans found it hard going doing the long distances
through the hot and harsh outback desert terrain and a solution
was found in bringing Afghans and camels to Australia.
This proved to be a brilliant idea and for many years between
1860 and 1929 Afghans used to drive their camel trains across
the vast deserts to transport essential supplies to settlers,
cattle stations, gold miners, and railway construction crews all
over Central Australia. Evidence of this crucial part of the centre's
history is still visible, date palms planted by the Afghans now
grow wild and have become part of the landscape, and camels now
also run wild and are estimated to number about half a million.
The ones in captivity are used to carry tourists on camel rides
and they are also exported to Arabia, Aussie wild camels are actually
of a better quality than they can find in Arabia or Africa!

Apart from a boom-and-bust gold rush period when
gold was discovered at Arltunga in 1887, the town slowly grew
over the years. The town got connected to the outside world in
1929 when the Adelaide to Alice railway line was completed and
the famous Ghan started its service, it still took until 1987
for the town to be connected by a bitumen highway to Adelaide,
and even longer for Alice Springs to be connected to Darwin by
rail.

In October 2003, after more than a hundred years
of talking about it, the 1420 km. N.T. railway from Alice Springs
to Darwin was finally built and completed at a cost of $ 1.3 billion.
Workers had to battle the desert heat and at times worked under
big lights in the night and slept in the day, and had to negotiate
with Aborigines to avoid sacred sites. The first freight train,
measuring 1200 metres in length and carrying 4000 tonnes, left
Adelaide on 15 January 2004 for the 43 hour and 2979 km. journey.
A crowd of 10 000 people welcomed the train on its arrival in
Darwin on Saturday 17 January.
Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin said the first
journey along the 3000km railway was ``a dream for Australia come
true'' , Prime Minister John Howard said; "this is a great
moment is the history of Australia, this is a reminder of Australia
at its best." Chris Corrigan, (a man who has made his fortune
in the transport industry and could be better qualified to judge)
said; they've spent $2 billion building a railway for five trains
a week and a few cartons of beer and I expect the financial returns
on that to be smaller than ticks' testicles. But for the first
year of operations they carried more freight than had been anticipated.
It certainly provides a great way for travellers to see the Northern
Territory outback in comfort. You can learn more about the amazing
history of the Ghan at the Old Ghan Museum and Transport Hall
of Fame.

Alice Springs is also home to a U.S/Australian Pine
Gap joint defense satellite monitoring base that was built about
20 km. from the town in the 1960s, employing about 700 people
that inject $12 million a year in to the local economy.

Nowadays Alice Springs is quite a modern town, to
get your bearings go to the top of Anzac Hill for a great view
over Alice Springs, and further out to the Eastern and Western
MacDonnell Ranges.
The town is intersected by the Todd River, which is a dry sandbed
for most of the year, but when the wet season rains hammer down
flashfloods can change this rapidly, temporarily cutting access
to parts of the town, and flushing out people that live and sleep
in the riverbed. This river is also the location of one of Australia's
interesting annual events, the Henley On Todd Regatta, a boat
race in a dry river. Contestants run in boats that have no bottoms.
Todd Street Mall is the centre of Alice Springs and this is where
you will find plenty of shops to buy your souvenirs, book your
tours etc, and there are also some historic buildings worth looking
at; such as Adelaide House and the John Flynn Museum. This man
founded the Flying Doctor Service, a uniquely Australian institution
providing medical care to vast outback areas too far from any
other medical facilities.
A visit to the Flying Doctors visitors centre is a worthwhile
thing to do, here you can learn about this amazing Australian
institution and all proceeds of entry fees help to keep the Flying
Doctors flying. You may have seen them in action in the Aussie
TV series Flying Doctors that was popular in the 1980s that gave
a pretty realistic view of the magnificent work they do.

Getting around the small town of Alice Springs is
easy on foot, but there is also the bus called the 'Alice Wanderer'
that stops off at the major attractions around the town, and places
like Elkes Backpackers have a free shuttle bus to take you around
the town as well.

Though it is a small town you may need at least a week here to
fully appreciate this area, there is a wide variety of things
to do in this small town, from camel riding and horse riding to
hot air ballooning and four wheel drive safaris to Ayers Rock,
the fascinating outback and Aboriginal settlements.

The weather in this desert town are predominantly dry with brilliant
blue skies, most of the rain usually falls in the hotter months,
roughly from October till March. The annual rainfall is only around
275 mm. Be aware in summertime that the heat can be extreme in
the surrounding outback and make sure to drink plenty of water
and to take it easy, heat exhaustions and dehydration are not
uncommon this time of year, and Ayers Rock is closed to visitors
when temperatures go too high, statistically the chance of suffering
a heart attack here are higher than anywhere else in Australia.
Alice Springs holds Australia's record for the hottest average
temperature at 35.5C. The dry season is the best time to visit
when temperatures are pleasant with mild evenings and warm days
in the mid 20s. Be prepared for some other extremes too, if you
camp in the desert in the dry season temperautures can drop to
near frost levels!

Be aware that Ayers Rock or Uluru is not at Alice Springs, as
some people think, it is a 450km drive from the town, see our
Tours
page for options on how to get there.

During your stay in Alice Springs you will get to see varying
aspects of the local Aborigines, ranging from Aboriginal art at
the local galleries, tours out to remote communities to learn
about their culture, bush tucker etc. and a more unfortunate side
of heavy drinkers living in the dry Todd River. With Alice Springs
being a regional centre for a large area this is where Aborigines
end up living who have been expelled from their tribe for misbehaviour.
Locals often warn visitors to the town to avoid the area near
the Todd River after dark.

Temperatures can jump up and down 20°C from
minimum to maximum any day. In the summer the temperature often
goes a bit over 40 C (but can go up to 48), while in winter
it can plummet to as low as -7°C minimum (and has been reported
to go as low as -10). The climate is arid, with an average rainfall
of 275 mm, but the amount of rain can vary enormously from one
year to the next. Although not much rain falls when it does
fall then the Todd River often runs wild and camping Aborigines
get washed downstream.
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